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Geep – Adorable animal hybrid

By Nikki Dorrell |
August 6, 2014

Geep – Adorable animal hybrid

Only weeks old and she already has a fan following. This rare creature will make you squeal with delight!

Geep – Adorable animal hybrid

Meet Butterfly. While her name is slightly misleading, this gorgeous half goat, half sheep has been capturing the hearts of visitors to her home in Arizona, since the day she was born (and that was only weeks ago).

The offspring of an ewe and a goat, Butterfly is a definite hybrid, with the face and hooves of a goat and the woolen coat and tail of a lamb. Her owners named her Butterfly because of the black spots covering her body.

Priscilla Motola, owner of My Petting Zoo of Scottsdale, Arizona where Butterfly was born, wasn’t even aware that Butterfly’s mum was pregnant as she says that they normally don’t have males around “This wasn’t planned. It just kind of happened.”

However, she does have an inkling that a pygmy goat called Michael is to blame after a one-off rendezvous.

Butterfly is so rare that no one is really sure what to call her except a geep. She is currently the only reported breed of her kind in the US, with the cross a rare phenomenon as goats and sheep hardly mate and when they do, their offspring are usually born stillborn because the two breeds have different chromosomes.

So far things are going well for Butterfly who is reported to be healthy and happy, “jumping around, nursing and playing with her mom,” Motola said.